the knife

I get it; you don’t need to rub
it in. I’m already bleeding
from a thousand self-inflicted wounds,
and you are the knife
that I turn within myself;
that is love, to quote
Kafka. and to think
I felt halfway to happy
for a second.

but it’s okay, I deserve it
after how very vicious I was
before. kill me again, some more,
kill me now, just take
your time and make it
nice and slow.

I do something good,
and then immediately have
to ruin it. can’t leave well enough
alone, that’s my spirit
name. I used to have these
horrible daydreams –
intrusive thoughts, they
call them – that someone
gave me a present,
hand-made, fragile,
and I deliberately broke it
in front of them.

I just worked on
my latest song and
tried to fix it and instead
broke everything that
worked about it and
didn’t even fix the specific parts
that actually needed fixing.

so a thousand more lashes, please:
spare the knife and spoil
the heart.